Text formatting terminology

- In order to discuss Text Kit…and type formatting in general,…We'll need to agree on some common terminology.…The term "glyph" refers to the shape of a character.…It is the graphical representation…of the character on the page.…In this example,…the character is the capital letter "Q."…Here there are four different graphical representations…of the same letter,…each of these is a different glyph.…The distinction is important…because the same character…will have different dimensional properties…depending upon its graphical representation.…

And the graphical representation of a given character,…its glyph,…may be different under different contextual circumstances.…A "ligature" is a combination of two or more characters…in a single glyph.…Ligatures are commonly used in traditional typesetting…and are becoming more common…in computer-based layout.…Depending upon its context,…text may become more readable…by combining two or more adjacent characters…into one glyph.…In this example,…using a Garamond typeface,…the serif at the top of the lowercase "F"…

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11/23/2015

Get a quick introduction to Text Kit, the Apple API for formatting and managing text in iOS 9 applications. Using Text Kit, developers can enhance the display of text in their apps with fonts, styles, spacing, and even ligatures. In these short tutorials, Bill Weinman explains what Text Kit is and provides examples that show how to use Text Kit in iOS 9 applications: to support accessibility with dynamic type, flow text around images, or manage font resources with font descriptors.